


Not from the stars do I my judgement pluck

by Fire_Sign



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M, Soulmate AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-01-03
Packaged: 2018-09-14 07:05:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9167572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fire_Sign/pseuds/Fire_Sign
Summary: The war rather devastates the idea of soulmates, too many young men gone for it to be a feasible concept. Jack’s never paid it much mind either way; he’s married to his, and that will be enough. Phryne hates the idea, knowing it means nothing.My contribution to the soulmate challenge





	

**Author's Note:**

> So, in case you missed it in the influx of soulmate fics, [the gauntlet has been thrown to anyone interested in writing](http://firesign23.tumblr.com/post/155255657487/january-mfmm-fic-challenge).

The war rather devastates the idea of soulmates, too many young men gone for it to be a feasible concept. Jack’s never paid it much mind either way; he’s married to his, and that will be enough. Only it isn’t, in the end. A tattoo on his hip with her name is no match for years in the trenches, for the taste of mud, for nightmares that haunt him, for a lifetime of disappointments filling the air in their little cottage.

Filing for divorce with that over their heads is nigh on impossible, but they manage. He suspects George Sanderson talked to the judge; he should regret it, but the obligations of a soulmate do include making the other person happy. At least she’ll stand a chance; even an imperfect match is better than the life she’s leading now.

What he doesn’t predict is that it’s better for him as well, but shortly after the papers are filed and before their court date is set there arrives a whirlwind named Miss Fisher and she reminds him of the man he used to be.

\------

She hates the idea of soulmates, knows that it means nothing. Janey had a name on her skin, Phryne did not; she wonders, when the truth of Murdoch Foyle comes out, whether the universe is able to account for human cruelty. 

She’s not incomplete without one: she has friends and family--of choice and of blood--and independence; nothing could be better than that. The only times she feels the absence is the occasional late night in her parlour, when the fire has died down and Jack Robinson has not yet fled to the safety of his nebulous, secretive life. Because she has wanted men in her bed, has forged deep connections with people; never have those spheres overlapped in quite this way, and she wonders if this is a smidgen of what she is missing.

\------

“Did you ever find your soulmate?” Phryne asks him one day, chin resting on her knees and a cocktail in hand; it is his favourite view of her.

He could lie: say that he never had, or even that he didn’t have one. She doesn’t--he noticed it during the incident at the sauna in the aftermath of their first case. No man could ever be a match to her, and he’d pity the poor soul who tried. 

“Rosie,” he says, and sees the surprise on her face. “Yes, I know.”

She doesn’t judge, just twists in her seat to grab another drink and passes it over.

“It’s overrated,” she says.

He wonders if she is unfettered because she has no soulmate, or has no soulmate because she is free; six of one, half a dozen of the other, really. Either way, he raises his glass in a silent toast and they move on to other matters.

\------

He leaves her with some tripe about never wanting to change her; in her fury she wants to follow him, tell him she expected nothing less from a man who let his soulmate go. She still thinks the idea is absurd, but it’s settled under her skin, this connection; the idea of letting something more than this go is unfathomable to a woman who has fought and scraped her entire life. But he has made his choice, and she has no claim on him.

A person doesn’t have to be your soulmate to break your heart, it seems.

\------

He finds his way back to her, or perhaps it is that she worms her way back to him. He could resist. Should resist. She is obstinate and impulsive and frankly awful for his sanity, and the incident with the rally car driver had made it abundantly clear that Rosie’s name might be tattooed on his hip, but it is Phryne that has worked herself beneath his skin. So he absolutely could and should resist her reappearance.

In the end, he finds he doesn’t want to. Something is better than nothing.

\------

Sanderson and Fletcher are arrested, and Phryne has not quite forgotten the moment she was vulnerable before the latter’s gun or the relief in Jack’s steady aim. She invites him to Wardlow when this is all over; for a drink, to touch him, to prove to herself that they are both alive and well. She wants to bring him to her bed, taste and smell and _experience_ him, and do it again when morning comes. 

It should feel wrong, but it doesn’t. Which is exactly why she is so gutted to see Jack embrace Rosie, offer her comfort as her entire world falls apart. There will be explorations tonight; rediscovery instead of uncharted territory, and Phryne will not be part of it.

\------

Rosie is his soulmate, a detail that has been etched onto his skin since he was born. She asks him to stay, and he almost does; it would be easier, to accept the universe’s desires and give no thought to his own, but there is a woman across the city who has complicated his life in a myriad number of ways and he can’t wait another moment to see her.

\-----

There is a knock on the door as she is ascending the stairs, familiar and longed for. She is certain she is imagining it, until it comes again. 

“I thought you were with Rosie,” she says, allowing him inside.

She sees the war of obligation on his features, still though they are. 

“I was,” he says, voice weary; she knows what it must have cost him to leave. “She just needed--”

She kisses him silent, leads him up the stairs to her boudoir, undresses him slowly; he is exhausted, and allows her to take the lead for once without a fight. Tomorrow it will be gone--she knows it, relishes it because they wouldn’t have found themselves here if he was the type to be compliant--but for this night at least, he allows her to love him. She kisses him: his lips, his throat, his chest. And when she reaches the tattoo of a name that isn’t hers, she kisses that too.


End file.
